Mostly I just want to beat up some helpless skaven, but I feel like most of the problems with training dummies not always providing realistic feedback for testing (such as triggering certain effects) could be solved by just using a real monster instead.
I agree with this. Talents can’t even be procced on dummies, making them almost useless, furthermore the change to damage numbers just made the experience inconsisten for new players. They might go and hit a dummy for 850 damage and then when a map ends, realizing they did 543. Confusing players hard!